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Anonymous

The hacker collective Anonymous began as an offshoot from the 4chan imageboard, an online forum that encourages people to post both text and images and that identified most users simply as "Anonymous." From its beginnings, Anonymous has combined an interest in "lulz" with an idiosyncratic commitment to free speech, transparency, and freedom. One of the early campaigns that gained notoriety was a real-world and virtual attack on the Church of Scientology, but members of Anonymous were just as likely to be found pranking online communities or sending condoms and pizzas to those they disliked.

Actually, “members of Anonymous” isn't accurate. The group has no members and has very limited leadership; those who want to “join” Anonymous could simply start participating in one of its operations. This makes the group difficult to define, as ideas bubble up without much coherence or structure, and “press releases” are routinely issued that don't necessarily represent the views of more than a handful of Anons.

Recently, Anonymous has become best known for denial of service attacks in which Anons voluntarily contribute their computers and Internet bandwidth to help attack various websites. A long-running campaign called Operation Payback targeted copyright owners and enforcers around the world, but it was the Anonymous support for WikiLeaks that really thrust the group into the international spotlight. In late 2010, Anonymous launched denial of service attacks on major financial institutions like Visa and MasterCard, taking down their websites temporarily.

This brought serious attention from national authorities like the FBI, but it also invited scrutiny from private security researchers. One of these, HBGary Federal's Aaron Barr, believed he had infiltrated the group and revealed its command structure—and that he could put real names to the online handles used by Anons. Barr's revelation of his research led to a blistering attack on his company that took down its website and stole his private e-mails; these would later cause a tremendous stir after they showed private security contractors plotting ways to harm WikiLeaks and go after opponents of the Chamber of Commerce.

The group's profile was raised yet again in mid-2011 after it attacked Sony. While its attack was ongoing, a hacker infiltrated Sony and made off with user information on over 70 million PlayStation 3 users. The outcry over the data breach reached all the way to Congress, and Sony publicly blamed Anonymous for the attack.